The Heists of Haruhi Suzumiya
by Johnny Wycliffe
Summary: A transplant of the SOS Brigade's personalities onto the Payday gang. Come along as the most headstrong girl in existence, a shameless playboy, a shy genius, a quiet shut-in and a totally normal guy turn to a life of crime for... reasons. Pairings will show up if it ever makes sense for them to show up. Rated T for harsh language and death.
1. Chapter 1: Back in the Game

"Vlad wants us to steal fifteen thousand dollars from these stores." Comes a soft voice through the radio.

The four of us exit the vehicle, eyes already scanning around, already alert and ready for action.

The first one out of the van stretches and smiles cheerfully. "Ah, it's good to be back."

"We're not back yet." Says the second, his perpetual smile still planted across his face. "There are four of us, and four stores. Should we each choose one?"

The third member of our little gang looks back and forth between me and the second. "I, uh, I think we should let K-"

"Dallas." I mutter.

"Dallas go in first." She hastily corrects herself.

We round the corner onto the street, and the sight brings me up short.

"Bain?" I say. "Why are there cameras?"

"Cameras?" Bain goes silent. "Vlad didn't say there was going to be cameras. You finish the job, and I'll contact him."

"Right."

We had gone over the plan beforehand. We bust in, grab the loot from the safes in the four stores, then leave before anyone has time to call the cops. With the camera added into the mix, this is going to be tricky.

"I'll go scope things out. Wolf, go check the other side, quietly."

The second one out of the van nods and crosses the street without pause.

I slip into the first store, a Pear store. Laptops and headphones are arranged in perfect rows, adding a splash of green to an otherwise white store. A guard barely glances at me, obviously bored out of his mind just standing around in this store with nothing to do. I step up to one of the overpriced laptops and start fiddling with it. The camera installed over the screen turns on, and I start using it to look over my shoulder into the room behind me. I can see the manager of the store on her phone, and a massive safe.

Okay, good. That should have some good stuff in it.

"Big safe in Pear store." I mutter to the third one as I walk past.

I back away from the laptop, turning to exit the store. Outside, I see the first one out of the van is standing outside of Time Out!

I hope she doesn't do anything rash.

I ignore her in favor of checking out the Twenty-Four Seven next door to the Pear store. In classic convenience store fashion, it's overcrowded with shelves, understaffed with only one person, and has more security cameras than I'm strictly comfortable with. It shouldn't be a problem though.

I step into a corner, pull a magazine off the rack and hold it up. I press my tongue to the third's invention strapped to my molar, activating the small transmitter. "How's the situation?"

"Time Out! has a safe in the back." Come's the first's voice.

"Bo Kung has nothing of note." Says the second.

Bain interrupts. "It's actually Kung Bo. It's read left to right rather than the way typical Chinese text is read." The soft voice corrects without malice.

The second being the second, he takes it in stride. "Of course. Should we start?"

I take a deep breath. "On my mark."

I pull the gun out of my waistband, along with a small wireless transmitter. It has adhesive on one side, allowing me to plant it on basically any flat surface. It's an Electric Counter Measure, or ECM for short. It scrambles signals in the area for about twenty seconds. The battery isn't that good, but that's how the third one got it so small.

I stick it to the wall and press my finger on the button. "Mark."

I pull a mask off of my hip, the grotesque expression of the clown briefly staring back at me before I slip it onto my head.

I step out from the corner and the clerk notices me. She blinks twice before her eyes go wide and she raises her hands over her head, nervously glancing between the pistol in my hand and my masked face.

"Get down on the ground." I shout.

She immediately complies, and I take the opportunity to shoot the cameras. The little transmitter in my mouth is still emitting static, telling me I still have time on before the camera feed start back up.

I pull a zip tie out of my pocket and tie the woman's wrists together. Then I look out the back window. I can see the third holding a security officer at gunpoint, all the cameras in the Pear store destroyed.

Then I hear three really, really load gunshots, followed by some screams.

I run out the front door to find that patrons of Time Out! has been thoroughly terrorized by the first. She has opted for complete and utter shock to keep everyone down. She had taken out the cameras in the front at least.

I run past her towards the back doors. She grins in my direction, and I just shake my head.

Bain's voice comes through the receiver as the static dies. "Traffic diverted."

"Great." I respond. "Wolf, how's things going?"

"Absolutely wonderfully." He responds lightly. "Everyone here is secure."

"Any loose civilians?"

"No."

"I, I don't see any-"

"Nope!"

"Okay. Hoxton, get a drill on the Pear store safe. I'll get the one in Time Out! and Wolf can hold down the fort until you can get over to Ko Bung."

"Kung Bo." Comes a gentle admonishment from Bain.

The first, Chains, speaks up. "Any alarms?"

As if on cue, I turn the corner and find a guard taking a smoke break. He looks surprised for a second before reaching for his radio.

I raise my pistols and put two shots into his knees, dropping him. The radio squawks as a voices comes from the other side, possibly some sort of dispatch. "Hey, is everything alright?"

"Ah crap." I mutter, then pick up the radio. "Yeah, everything's fine. Accidentally tripped on a rock."

"Uh huh. Okay." A short pause. "Okay, I've got it noted."

I allow myself a sigh of relief. That sounds like he bought it.

Hoxton "Eeps" as the radio next to her activates.

Wolf dashes across the street to get the radio as Hoxton continues her work.

I smash the glass leading into the back of Time Out! and step right up to the safe, my stomach sinking as I approach it. "I can't pick this safe." I say over the radio. "Hoxton, I need a drill over here too."

She takes a second before answering. "Ah, come get it. I need to get to Kung Bo and get the charge on the safe over there."

I run out onto the street, happy to find that Chains had been busy herding the civilians into the Twenty-Four Seven and alley beside it instead of wasting time shooting at random things.

Hoxton runs up to me, drops a small drill in my arms and turns to run to the Chinese pottery store. I head to the back of the coffee shop and place the drill in position on the safe, though I can't quite be sure I have it placed in the right spot. After all, I'm unfamiliar with this series of safes.

Now comes the waiting. The drill is going to take about three minutes, and the big one in the Pear store should take about five minutes.

A dull thud comes from next door. Hoxton's voice comes over the radio. "I, I have a gold bar!" She says happily.

Bain chimes in. "That covers the bare minimum requirement. I'm calling in the escape vehicle. It will be on site soon."

I walk out towards the front of the café, grabbing a cup and pouring some coffee while I'm waiting. My right hand never leaves my gun however, clumsily managing the task with my left hand.

My peaceful coffee break is interrupted by the drill bucking out of the hole it had been drilling and grinding loudly on the front of the safe. I sigh and quickly head to the back of the store to fix it.

Chains walks in through the front door. "Bain, couldn't you have gotten us better drills? I heard it from the street! I thought we had found drills that didn't jam every three seconds."

"I was unable to acquire better equipment than those. It is a problem with the quality of the safes in question." Bain responds.

I suck down the rest of my coffee and glance at the screen taped to the side of the drill. Only about thirty more seconds.

"Why on earth did they have a gold bar?" I wonder out loud, referring to the Chinese shop across the alley.

"Something is not right about this job." Wolf says calmly. "I am starting to think this wasn't a simple hit."

"Van has arrived." Bain says.

"Alright, grab what you can and let's scram." I say. The safe had opened

"B-But there's only a minute left on this safe." Hoxton says.

"Okay, you grab that. Everyone else get to the van."

"It's parked behind the Twenty-Four Seven, through a locked door." Bain supplies.

Ah, looks like it's up to me to get to the van. I sprint across the street and into the back alley, lock picking tools already in my hands. Fortunately, normal doorknob locks haven't improved as much as safes had in the time I had been out. It only took me a few seconds to get through the door.

Chains and Wolf follow me back, guns trained outwards.

"Wow! There's a lot of money in here!" Hoxton's voice comes from over the radio. She arrives at the van a few moments later, and we climb in.

I take off my mask to get a breath of fresh air, the rest of my comrades doing the same.

Chains removes her mask to reveal sharp features. Her eyes are brown, and her brown hair is tied up with a yellow ribbon making her seem significantly younger than her actual twenty-three. Her adrenaline fueled smile positively lights up the back of the van.

Wolf removes his mask exposing his features to us once again. He's a very handsome twenty-two-year-old, if I'm to go by the typical reaction of females any time he talks to them. He too has brown hair and eyes, like mine and Chains'.

Hoxton removes her mask to let her long orange hair fall out from behind her mask. She looks almost like a puppy with the way her eyes seem to always be on the verge of watering, but she obviously can get the job done. The oldest yet newest member of our team at twenty-four.

We can't see the driver because of the separator between us and the driver compartment. I bang on the divider. "Hey, who's driving?"

"You can call me Twitch." Comes the voice from the other side. "Hold on, I'm going to run this red light."

I quickly brace myself in place as the van speeds up. Hoxton doesn't brace in time, and she is thrown across the cabin into my lap. She looks up with tears in her eyes. "I, I'm sorry!"

I think it might be physically impossible to be mad at this girl. "Don't worry about it."

"Thanks, Kyon."

"It's Dallas." I grumble.

"Eh, we're safe enough for now. We can call each other by our real names now." Says Chains. Well, Haruhi.

Mikuru gets up off of me and sits back in her seat. "I didn't know your heists were this intense!"

I have to laugh at that. "This was nothing. Just a warm up to get back into the swing of things."

Mikuru's eye go wide as she stares at me. "That wasn't a large heist? But we got over thirty thousand dollars!"

Koizumi grins. "We used to get millions of dollar in one heist, you know. This isn't even that much in comparison."

She turns her gaze to him. Mikuru is kind of new to the whole business, after all. She had taken up the mantle of our former teammate, also nicknamed Hoxton. We don't talk about Old Hox much.

We arrive back at the safe house without incident, and I turn on the TV as Haruhi starts counting money and dividing it into shares.

Bain steps out from her room filled with computers, greeting us all silently with a nod.

Koizumi turns to Bain, or Yuki if you prefer, and asks "Did you find out what is going on with Vlad's misinformation?"

Yuki shakes her head. "I've set up a meeting. Tomorrow at noon."

"Gives us time to get some sleep at least." I say. "Okay, we'll need to be packing something more than silenced pistols, since we're going to have to give Vlad a show of force." The other's look to me. "But for now, get some rest. Who knows, we might need it."

Despite my own advice, I can't seem to get to sleep. I wander out into the main hallway of the underground safe house. There I can see that someone else is up as well.

"Mikuru?"

She starts and looks up at me. "Oh, Hi Kyon!" She looks back down at the desk. "I couldn't get to sleep, so I've been working on improving some of our gear. I think I made the drills a bit better, and while I was looking for parts I found a few bulletproof vests!" She proudly displays the vests she had found.

"Good job." I place a hand on her head and scruff up her hair a bit. "But you really should get some rest. I have a feeling tomorrow isn't going to go smoothly."

She nods. "If you say so. Goodnight, Kyon."

"Goodnight, Mikuru."

* * *

Welcome to my latest project, a merger between The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi and Payday 2. As you can tell, the Payday gang has been replaced by the main characters of the novels. Other than that, the world of Payday is going to remain very close to the game. There are some things I will change, such as Bain joining everyone else in the safe house, making some things possible that aren't in the game, such as carrying a decent amount of zip ties, not just two. Of course, I can still work it in… Also, everyone speaks English, and Japanese names are not going to be out of the ordinary. It still takes place in Washington DC. Alternate Universes can be stupid like that sometimes.

I plan of going through the heists in a sort of chronological order. Thucydides on steam has made a rough timeline of the heists(The Unofficial Payday 2 timeline), though I happen to know that it is slightly incorrect (Four stores is the first heist of Payday 2 according to the FBI files) and I will be fixing that. I would go and read it, as it's actually kind of funny with all the detail he puts into it.

Wolf trips out and imagines the Halloween events. Seriously, go read it.

This chapter is on the short side, later chapters will have more to them as the characters interact during their downtime and the heists get longer. Next chapter should have the meeting with Vlad and the next heist.

I hope you all enjoyed, and I'll be back with more! I think!


	2. Chapter 2: Meetings

I climb out of the van and squint against the sunlight.

The bright sun shines down on the small park located in the middle of D.C. The rest of the Payday Gang climb out of the van behind me, including Bain. I was surprised she had decided to join us, to be honest, but she's been very adamant about meeting Vlad.

Speaking of, there's three men in business suits standing innocuously by one of the gates. If I had to hazard a guess, I would say these are the people we're here to meet. It helps that one of the guys to the side has a hand in his suit telegraphing the fact he has a pistol. The other has a suitcase in his left hand, leaving his right free for grabbing a gun.

It's not like we're wearing anything much different. Bain, Chains, Wolf and I are all still wearing two-piece suits, but Hoxton is wearing a business skirt instead of pants. An odd choice, but if it works for her, that's great.

One of the bodyguards taps the man in the center on the shoulder. He turns around-

I blink in surprise. "Tanagu-"

"Ah ah ah! I am Vlad!" My old friend strikes a pose. It's not especially convincing with the way even his bodyguards look at him askance. All the tension leaves the meeting.

It takes all my effort to keep my composure. "Right, Vlad."

"You, uh, you know him?" Hoxton asks shyly.

Vlad looks at Hoxton and his eyes go wide. "A gem!" He sweeps right up close to Hox and kisses her hand. Hox seems to just accept it, but I know she doesn't really like people to fawn over her. I almost got a chance to respond.

Almost.

The two bodyguards reach for their weapons as Chains pulls out a rather large knife. She has a rather disturbing look on her face, a face locked into a grin a bit too wide to be genuine, and her eyes so wide her pupils had shrunk from overexposure. "I suggest you let go of Hoxton before you meet mister X-46."

Vlad backs off hands in the air and a smile still plastered on his face. "Sure, sure. I must apologize, I was simply enchanted by your beauty." The smile fades. "As much as I would like nothing more to invite you all for a drink, I assume that you would all rather go on to the reason for our meeting." His eyes narrow.

I take a deep breath. This is the Tanaguchi I knew, presenting an eccentric façade with the shrewd smarts to make it as far as he had in the underworld. According to what Bain had dug up, he had made his way up through the ranks of the Russian mafia quite easily. If I had known he was Mafioso back when we were kids, I might not have been with him as much.

Bain steps forward. "You gave us inaccurate information."

The smile returns. "Oh, what's a heist without a little surprise or two?" As he becomes serious, the guards on either side of him puff out their chests. "This is too open; why don't we talk a stroll through this lovely park?"

Bain looks back to me for confirmation. I nod to her, and she nods to Vlad.

Calling it a stroll was an overstatement. Sprinting, it would be a matter of seconds to get from one end to the other. In the center of the park is a fountain, and Vlad sits down on one of the benches arranged around it.

"Okay, let's talk business." He leans forwards and props his face in his hands, elbows braced on his knees. "I needed to test your mettle." He eventually says.

"Not informing us of the risks-"

"If I had, there wouldn't have been any surprises." He cut's me off. "There's always surprises in our line of work, and if you can't handle them, I'm not going to hire you again."

I bristle at his words. "Vlad, you're treading dangerous waters here."

"Of course, of course. Good thing you're all competent then, eh? That brings me to my next job I have for you."

"What makes you think we'll do it?" Chains asks. I suddenly notice that she had tied up her hair with a yellow ribbon. That hadn't been there when we had exited the van.

"Oh, you don't have too, but I'm willing to pay handsomely for the job. Ah, before I forget." He pulls two envelopes out of his pockets and hands them to Bain. She whips out a stiletto blade and slices both of the envelopes open in one smooth motion. "The first is your payment for reminding the store owners why they're supposed to pay me protection money. The second is details of your next mission." He grins. "Should you choose to accept it, of course."

Bain's normally stoic features change ever so slightly as she looks at the contents of the second envelope.

"And to facilitate your successful completion of the job, I have for you a present." Vlad takes the suitcase from his subordinate. He then passes it to me.

I pop the latches and look into the case in confusion. "Grenades?"

"Now, would any of you like to take me up on my offer for a drink? Business always makes me thirsty."

* * *

"This is very odd." Koizumi says to me the next day. Once again, Twitch is driving the van, Bain is still in the safehouse, and the four of us are in the back of the van, heading for a three story mall. "This is not how we used to do things."

"How do you mean?" I ask, reading my Eagle Heavy Rifle.

"We used to sneak around and grab things, not just smash things up, cause havoc and call it a job well done." He frowns slightly, which for him is the equivalent of Haruhi attempting to shoot the offending party. Okay, bad example. It's the equivalent of _me_ pulling a gun on someone without undue cause. What I'm getting at is that Koizumi isn't exactly happy at the moment.

"Well, we don't have much of a reputation anymore. Taking whatever we get is as good a way to get back on our feet as any. And besides, it's a lot less nerve wracking than being completely silent for forty minutes at a time, waiting for a drill to finally get through the wall of a safe." I remind him.

"We're here!" Comes a voice from the front of the van. The van comes to a stop and Mikuru opens the back doors to climb out, stretching as she gets clear of the cramped interior. The rest of us follow soon after.

We're all wearing the body armor Mikuru had fished up back in the safe house. It's not that much, but it should stop a bullet or five.

Bain's voice crackles through our radios. "Objective is to cause fifty-thousand dollars' worth of damage to the mall. Merchandise, skylights, ATMs. I will provide approximates to keep you updated."

I look up at the sleepy little mall. It's off hours, everyone with a respectable job too busy working to be shopping. Still, there are civilians around, so we have to be careful. I pat one of Vlad's presents, dangling by my hip. If I actually use it, I'd be surprised.

Haruhi exits the vehicle with a gas can in each hand. She presses one of the jugs into Mikuru's hands before pulling her mask out and placing it on top of her head so her face is still exposed. "ready?" She asks the group at large.

I pull my own mask out and cover my face. "Let's go."

We step into the mall like we own the place. The civilians off on the edges don't notice us immediately, and once they do they take a few moments to register what they're seeing. I raise my rifle to point at the ceiling and fire. The noise rips through the mall, instantly getting everyone's attention.

"Everybody get the fuck down!" I shout.

Much to the security guard's credit, he didn't back down when faced with four people in clown masks barging in. Unfortunately, heroism gets you a bullet. I tried to aim for some of the less vital organs, but I doubt he'll be able to walk soon.

People start to scream as they realize just what is going on. Two of them make a dash for the exit, but We quickly intercept them and tie them up. The other civilians are subdued easily enough, especially after Wolf's reassurances and Chains' intimidation.

It's then that I notice the guard's radio is squawking like a parrot thrown into a wood chipper. I know what that sounds like courtesy of a bored Chains.

"Shit, the cops are on to us." I shout to the rest of the crew.

Chains eyes the glass ceiling, hefts on of the grenades, and pulls the pin. She lobs it straight up a second later and it explodes as it reaches the peak of its arc.

Which shatters the large skylights into a veritable hail of glass. I barely have any time to scramble for cover before a rain of spiky death crashes to the floor in a thunderous wave.

Belatedly, I notice that Chains is whooping with joy.

"That's about ten-k worth of damage." Bain chimes in.

"Okay." I call out. The police will be here any second. Hoxton, see if there's any safes to crack open. Chains, pour that gas somewhere and light it up. Wolf, take Hox's gas can." I start delegating tasks. I don't exactly know how I ended up the de-facto leader of our little gang, but the others look to me for orders. Well, when Chains isn't being headstrong. "I'll watch the doors and take out any cops that show up."

As I pass by the now much more critically wounded guard, I notice the badge on his chest. GenSec. This elicits a frown from me, but nobody looking would see it for the mask. GenSec had been the main security provider of the places we hit back in New York. I knew that they're a nationwide security firm, but this is a bit too much of a coincidence. After all, GenSec is pretty corrupt. They have hired mercs in the past to protect armored trucks.

Despite myself, a smile crosses my face. All those mercenaries, and they couldn't stop the four of us, could they?"

The sight of our blue van peeling out as it Twitch presumably floors it in an effort to get it.

As if on cue, Bain speaks up. "The escape driver had to leave. I am looking for alternatives."

Police vehicles pull up to the front of the building and start to exit their vehicles.

I raise my rifle and start squeezing the trigger. The officers return fire, their pistols shooting a least a pound of lead past my head before I duck behind a planter to reload.

"Twenty thousand." Bain reports.

"D-Dallas? There's a jewelry store up h-here." Comes Hoxton's voice. "I put a drill on the safe. Should I grab all the loose stuff?"

"Yeah." A bullet glances off the stone shielding me from the officers outside. "Grab what you can, bag the rest, and make sure you're ready when our escape arrives."

"Hey! They have a Falcogini here!" Comes Chains' voice. A second later I hear another grenade detonate. "And now it's a… uh, Shred-o-gini?"

"Forty-five thousand." Bain comments. "After all, not a functional model Falcogini."

"Someday, I'm gonna drive one of those." Chains comments. "And there's going to be explosions and ramps and everything!"

All this chatter on the radio had distracted me somewhat. I hadn't been paying the attention required of a firefight. One of the officers had snuck up on me and had fired at me from less than twenty feet away. The bullet goes right through my left shoulder, causing me to gasp in pain. Without two hands to stabilize the gun, I had to let go and pull out my pistol to shoot the officer before he could finish me off.

"Wolf, where's the med bag?" I shout over my shoulder. A floor up, the gym suddenly lights up as the gas spread inside it is ignited. Wolf appears with the flame behind him, sliding down the railing of the escalator with two pistols, one in each hand. Unlike the way Hollywood like to portray shooting with two guns simultaneously, it's actually viable if you pull both triggers at once rather than staggering the shots between each hand. It looks a bit less cool, but who cares if it works?

Wolf reaches me and tosses me a small medical kit we had affectionately dubbed cupcakes. I unzip the small bag and slap some antiseptic and a temporary patch on the wound, before jabbing a numbing agent into my arm. I need to use my arm, despite however ill advised that might be for my future health. After all, there might not be much of a future if I can't fight my way out of here.

Bain's voice brings me back to reality. Damn, those painkillers make me lightheaded. "I have secured an escape route. He will be here in three minutes."

"And how do we get to him? The police are blockading the street!" I say through grit teeth. I raise my pistol again and fire at the wall of officers as I retreat to the escalator.

"That won't be a problem. You can stop destroying things, by the way."

"Aww…"

"You may continue to do so if you wish. Vlad's goal has been achieved, that's all."

Chains audibly cheers up at Bain's statement. "Goody! I'm going to go smash some Pearbooks."

Maybe we shouldn't be feeding her destructive tendencies, but who am I to talk, surrounded by broken glass?

Hoxton appears at the top of the stairs, wielding a Breaker 12G shotgun. "G-Get up here, quickly!"

Wolf and I run right past her as she closes her eyes and pulls the trigger, the heavy recoil jolting her entire frame.

Looking back, I don't think she was aiming at anyone, but it still had the desired effect of scaring the weaker willed officers. Several of the men in uniform dive off to the side.

Once at the top of the stairs, Hoxton pulls us into a MissWe bag store. Behind the counter, she's placed a small automated gun and two big bags of jewelry.

"Looks like you got a good haul." I pay the new girl a complement.

"Yeah, I did. We might be able to fence this- Your arm!"

"I'll be fine. Just need to get back to the safe house and I can make sure I'm good."

A new voice cuts into the radio. "Bile here, I'll be above you in thirty seconds."

"Above us?" Wolf tilts his head slightly.

"Helicopter." Bain adds helpfully.

"Uh, we may have a problem." Chains' voice comes through the receiver.

"What now?"

"They're deploying shield units."

Oh, crap. Those guys are hard to deal with without some serious armor piercing potential. "Pull out. Our ride's almost here."

Wolf and Hox both shoulder one of the bags of jewelry, and the beating of helicopter rotors becomes loud enough to be distinguished over the gunfire. I look up to see the news helicopter- stolen, presumably- turn sideways and a rope ladder drop down from the side hatch.

"Go go go!" I shout, and we all sprint for the ladder, draped above on of the bridges spanning the gap between the third floor shops. Hox grabs on first, followed by Wolf. Chains arrives a moment later only to turn and fire her RPK LMG into the pursuers. I similarly turn back to fight off those coming from my side of the small bridge. The ladder starts to retract back into the helicopter, drawing the two members of the Payday Gang attached to it up to safety.

"Just like the slaughterhouse, huh?" Chains cheers wildly.

"Just like the slaughterhouse." I agree, glad I can't feel the recoil as I fire my rifle at the oncoming enemy. I spot two of the shields coming up the escalator and an idea strikes me. I pull the grenade from my hip and toss it over the shields. The giant plates of metal trap the blast between them and the wall, ironically shielding us from all the shrapnel the explosives cause.

The ladder comes back down and Chains and I each wrap a hand in the rope making up the ladder. It starts pulling us up into the sky, to freedom.

Once inside the chopper, I look around at the faces of my teammates.

"Good job."

"Fuck yeah!"

To my surprise, Mikuru joined in Haruhi's obscene cheer as Bile tilts the craft and we start heading off too fast for the ground units to follow.

* * *

Got to get back into the swing of things, just like, say, four new players buying Payday 2 and figuring out how everything works. Vlad provides an excellent starting point. For those Who are unfamiliar with Payday 2, the first chapter was the heist Four Stores, and this one was Mallcasher. The park is the one from the park escape.

Because I wanted to make it clear: Haruhi is the enforcer, Koizumi is the mastermind, Kyon is the ghost, and Mikuru is the technician. I have reasons, I swear.

Now if only Microsoft Word would stop correcting Tanaguchi to Tamagotchi…


	3. Chapter 3: New Revenue

It's been a few days since we went and smashed up a mall for Vlad and frankly I'm starting to get a little antsy. There's not much to do in the safe house.

Well, that's not really true. There's just not much for me to do. I practiced on some of the safes, but you can only pick the same damn safe so many times before it starts to drive you mad. I spent some time on the firing range, but that loses its luster when compared to a real firefight. I tried practicing picking all sorts of doorknobs, and ran out of those.

I really need some sort of hobby. As for the rest…

Bain has been glued to her computers as usual, apparently attempting to find us some new contacts. Taking those contracts for Vlad had really re-established us as a name in the game. Vlad had apparently been pleased with the job we did at the mall, and had assured us he would have more things to do in the future.

Koizumi has been out of the safe house most of the time, working his real job as bartender. He seems to enjoy the work, and since he's bartending at a high class joint he makes quite a pretty penny off of that. Kind of makes me wonder why he joined up with us. We all agreed not to ask about each other when we first formed the Payday gang, which was a practical consideration but it leaves a lot of unanswered questions.

Mikuru is tinkering away in her workspace as usual, trying to assemble some sort of gadget to help us get in and out of secure areas. Right now all it looks like it lots of shredded wire, some smoke from the soldering iron, and lots of little electronic parts strewn about haphazardly.

Haruhi… well, she's doing what she always does. Weightlifting.

"Kyon!"

I turn to face the energetic girl. "Yes?"

"I need a spotter. Come help me."

I find myself reaching for an excuse, any excuse, but I come up short. Instead, I just sigh and follow her into the makeshift gym she had set up in her portion of the safe house.

With Koizumi and Yuki, it's a bit hard to figure out where they spend the majority of their cash they get from the heists. With Mikuru and Haruhi, it's really not that hard. The makeshift gym has every single piece of workout equipment I'd ever heard of, and some hunks of metal I can't seem to decipher their method of use.

Haruhi heads straight over to a bench press set up already loaded with weights. She squirms under the bar and looks over at me expectantly.

I size up the plates attached to the bar as I pass by. It seems she's attempting to bench more than I weigh. I take my place next to her head.

"Alright, just make sure to catch the bar if I start to drop it." Haruhi says.

"Yeah, yeah, I know how to spot." I bring my hands to just an inch away from the metal bar, ready to grab it if she needs me to grab it.

I take another look at the plates, trying to get an accurate read on the plates. There's two forty-fives, a twenty-five, and two tens on each side. That's… two hundred seventy, plus the forty-five-pound bar makes three hundred five pounds.

I had heard somewhere that being able to bench press anything more than one and a half times your body weight was impressive. I highly doubt that Haruhi weighs quite two hundred pounds, so I'll just have to remain impressed.

Her biceps bulge out as she applies a burst of energy to her muscles. The bar shoots up into position in front of her, then dips down and she repeats the process four more time before she sets the bar back on the rack.

She slides out from under the bar and sits up on the bench. "I'll be doing four more sets. Do you want to try while I'm resting?"

"No, I don't think I can match that." My masculine pride takes a small hit as I say that, but better hurt pride than hurt back, right?

"Aw, come on. I bet you can do at least one."

"Are you going to pay my medical bills when my back snaps in half?" I ask.

"Sure. It's won't happen, since I'll be spotting, but sure."

I grumble slightly but take Haruhi's place on the bench. I place my hands on the bar and get ready to press. Haruhi hovers her hands near the bar like I had been doing. I take a breath, lock down my core and press.

If I hadn't seen Haruhi move the bar a minute ago, I would have sworn the bar was welded to the rack. It doesn't move at all, not even a tiny budge.

I disengage my muscles and look at Haruhi. Her face is screwed up in a valiant attempt not to laugh.

"What?" I say indignantly, the effect lessened considerably by our current positions. "We both knew you are stronger than me."

"Yeah, but Kyon, you lost to a _girl."_

"Uh huh." That girl is a workout maniac, and I'm not.

"We obviously need to get you into shape." She hammers her fist into her hand. "I'll start making you a workout plan!"

"No thanks. If you draw one up, make it for Yuki or Koizumi."

She blows her lips out. "But that won't work! Yuki doesn't even come on missions, and Koizumi's charm is that he's a pretty boy. If he becomes all muscular, he won't be as useful."

I sigh. The last member of our gang probably needs the workout regimen the most, but I'll be damned if I let Haruhi torment Mikuru with her gym. Not to mention the other things Haruhi gets into when unsupervised. "Fine, make me a workout plan, but remember that I have my own stuff to do. I can't train all the time like you."

"I don't train _all_ the time." Haruhi says, gesturing for me to vacate the bench so she can do her next set. "I do take days off, shoot at our range, and I go to classes!"

"Classes?"

She starts her next set, and answers my question when she finishes. "Yeah, I'm taking some college courses. I don't want to be the dumb muscle forever, you know?"

"Huh." Don't have much to say to that.

She starts up another set, and when finished I can see a slight sheen of sweat on her forehead. "If you look at the rest of the group, we have Koizumi, who can deal with people in any manner of ways, Mikuru, who can invent her way out of prison with a toothpick and half a plastic spoon, Yuki, who managed to get us into this business in the first place with her skills, and you who can just fade into the background. I can punch stuff _really hard_ and that's about it." She starts her fourth set.

I want to say that isn't true, but I'm having a hard time coming up with a counterexample.

"So yeah, I'm trying to learn some new things. It's kind of a shame college doesn't include lock picking classes."

She finishes up her last set, panting slightly from the effort. "Thanks for spotting me."

I shake my head. "It's not like you needed it."

"You never think you need a spotter until the bar crashes down on you. Better safe than sorry." She unconsciously traces a line across the top of her torso. My guess is she had just had the bar fall on her not too long ago.

Yuki pokes her head into the doorway, and then stares at us for a minute before speaking. "Am I interrupting?"

Haruhi glances at me, then gets a wicked grin. "Ye-"

"NO." I cut the excitable woman off. "What do you need, Yuki?"

"Found a new job."

Fifteen minutes later, Koizumi walks into the now crowded room the Yuki calls her own, the last to arrive. He shivers slightly in the overly cold room. "Alright, what is this new heist? I'm missing something… important to be here."

"Hacked into GenSec. Old Security hole. Found a small jewelry store with a large shipment of new goods." Yuki turns to me with a questioning look.

"Can you give me some more information?"

She turns around and types some things into her keyboard and drags the result onto one of the TV size monitors positioned above her head.

"Blueprints? That's useful." I mutter.

"Oh!" Mikuru points to another window pooping up to the side of the blueprints. "I saw that advertisement!"

Sure enough it's an advertisement for a new set of designer jewelry to be sold at this jewelry store. Pretty nice stuff too. It's some celebrities' personal brand or something.

"Looks like a good job to me." I say.

A third document opens, but the text is too small to read at this distance.

"Yuki, we can't read that." Haruhi says, leaning on the back of Yuki's chair, almost tipping it over.

Yuki barely manages to keep the chair from toppling over by leaning as far forward as she can. "Large amounts of cash in their safe."

I turn to the others. "Any objections?"

"Nope!"

"Uh-uh."

"Can we postpone it to tomorrow? I'm still kind of busy." Koizumi says.

Yuki nods. "Display lasts three days."

"Tomorrow morning then." I say firmly. "Make sure you're all ready to go."

* * *

The back doors of the van open and we step out into an alley. Right across the street is the jewelry store we're planning on hitting.

I have neglected to bring any weapon more substantial than a pistol. We shouldn't need it. The rest of the crew had bought heavier weapons for whatever reason.

Bain's voice comes over the radio. "Objective is to get money. Grab as much as possible."

I straighten my back and walk forwards to the front of the shop. The other three head into the alley to the left of the store. I had given Hoxton my mask to avoid being suspected inside the store.

I head over to the new display and look at the pieces. To be honest, it looks really nice. Lot's of glittery stones of high quality, at least as far as my understanding of jewelry goes.

In my ear, I hear the sound of Hoxton's shotgun being pumped. "H-hands up!" She says as authoritatively as she can manage. Distantly, barely being picked up by her transmitter, comes the voice of a security guard.

"Oh shit! Don't shoot!"

"Put your gun on the ground!"

"Okay. Just, don't shoot."

"Sir, do you see anything you like?"

I blink back to reality as the voice of the sales representative drowns out the small radio. "Ah, yes. That necklace in the center." I had picked the first piece of jewelry that caught my eye.

"Shopping for someone special?" She sounds amused.

"Yes. Anniversary coming up, and she said she liked" I quickly glance at the name plastered on the case "Yennefer Beyer's stuff, so when I saw the advertisement I decided to stop over."

The noise of a silenced pistol being shot comes through my earpiece, startling me slightly.

The saleswoman tilts her head. "Are you alright, sir?"

"Yes. Sorry about that. I thought I heard something." I smile weakly. "So, about the necklace-"

I hear some glass shattering from the back. Both the sales representative and I look to the back of the store. Looking around, it seems the rest of the store had noticed as well. The lone security guard in the front of the store draws his pistol and starts heading towards the back.

Well, there goes stealth.

Chains comes in from the back wielding her RPK LMG and sporting her best slasher smile. She fires three shots in the air. "Alright, everybody get down, now."

Most of the people sensibly dive to the floor. The security guard and one of the civilians however, didn't exactly get the message.

Chains lowers the barrel of the weapon down and aims it at the security guard. "Last chance."

He raises the pistol and fires a shot. The bullet impacts her vest and she has to shift one of her feet back to maintain her balance. In return, she fires a short burst back toward the guard, tearing any sort of protection he was wearing to shreds and sending him to the floor.

The other civilian gets the message and falls to the ground.

Hoxton and Wolf come out from the back room, and Hoxton tosses me my mask. I put it on and pull out my pistol. "Start tying everyone down."

Wolf shoots the only camera this store seems to have and pulls out a bundle of zip ties.

Chains raises her LMG over her head and brings it down on the glass, shattering it and exposing the jewelry before moving onto the next case.

Hox steps up to me. "There's a safe in the back, and more jewels."

"The safe should have the cash Bain was talking about." I comment. "I'll start packing the goods into the bags. Chains, watch the streets. Hox, you can make sure the drill keeps going." Wolf and Chains snort at the same time. Yes, the drills are that unreliable. "Wolf, get the civvies into the back of the store."

They all move to do the tasks I had assigned them.

"Four minutes left on the drill." Hox says as she arrives next to the safe.

"Road's clear."

"Bain, any silent alarms tripped?"

"No."

I start picking the items out of the shattered glass and throwing into the duffel bags we had prepared. I pack the bags as fast as possible, and before long we have seven entire duffel bags worth of loot. The bag of Yennefer Beyer loot should be worth a lot more than the other bags, so I made sure to mark it.

I hear a yelp from the front of the store and watch as Chains drags a young guy into the store by his collar, roughly shoving him down to the ground. "Hey, wolf. Got any spare ties?"

Wolf shakes his head. "I ran out already. Had to use the mouse cord from one of the computers to tie down the last civilian already in the store."

Chains lowers the barrel of her weapon and presses the barrel lightly into his forehead. "We don't seem to have any more things to tie you up, so you have two choices. Stay down, or learn if there really is an afterlife."

The guy must be less than seventeen. He nods his head, the weapon moving with the motion.

Wolf finishes bringing the last of the civilians to the back of the store, taking the boy and pulling him into the back. I grab two of the duffel bags and walk up to the front door. "Is it clear?"

Chains shrugs. "I've got you covered."

I start across the street, glad this particular street is not a particularly well-traveled one. I get all the way to the van and toss the first two bags of jewelry in before heading back to the store.

Hox comes out of the back with another bag over her shoulder. "I've got the cash!"

"Alright, let's bail." Wolf says.

Chains grabs two bags, I grab two more, and Wolf grabs the last loose bag and we start heading across the street.

"Hey, you there! Freeze!"

The four of us turn and stare at the two police officers. One of them has mustard on his chin, and the other has a hotdog in his hand. Behind them, I can see a hotdog vendor giving all of us odd looks.

Wolf drops his bag and steps forward to greet the officers. "Why hello there! Good to see that the citizens of our city can rest safe knowing that they have men like you on guard."

The officers look at each other. "Are you mocking us?" Says the one with mustard on his face.

"Of course not! See we're the new show in the discovery channel. You know the show To Catch a Thief? We're a new iteration, where instead of robbing the general public, we rob stores and get them to improve their security."

One of the officers looks convinced, but the other lowers the hot dog from his face and pulls out a radio. "I don't know; I'm going to call this in." He pulls the radio up to his face. "This is unit-"

I slap my ECM jammer onto the wall beside me and jump into the van. The static makes the officer jerk his head away from the radio.

"Go!" I yell.

The other pile into the van and Twitch floors it, taking us away from the scene. I yank my mask off and the others follow suit.

Bain cuts in. "Police have been alerted."

"Shit."

We turn a sharp corner and suddenly I can hear sirens outside of the van.

"Buckle up." Come's Twitch's voice. "I'm going to try and shake them."

There aren't any buckles in the back of the van, but there are straps. I wrap my hand through one of the straps and brace myself the best I can. Mikuru wraps her arms around my torso rather than fumble with the straps. I can feel my cheeks start to heat up, but I don't get time to dwell on it.

The van takes a sharp turn and rolls over, the sharp angle too much for the top heavy vehicle to handle. We are all thrown around inside and two bags of jewelry end up on top of me before the van comes to a stop.

Outside, we can hear all of the chasing policemen pull up and get out of their cars.

Haruhi slips her mask back on, the rest of us following suit. She pulls out her LMG, takes a deep breath, and kicks the back doors open.

"Bain, we crashed. We're going to need some backup." I say, pushing the bags of jewelry- Hello, that's certainly a bag, just not one with precious stones.

Hox looks up at me, but I can't see her expression through the mask. I am truly sorry; it was an accident.

I get myself off the floor and push two bags out the back, taking stock of my surroundings. We're right next to a convenience store, which would be a great place to hide. "Everyone, move the bags to the store. Bain, do you know where we are?"

"Yes. Sending backup to your location."

Well, now that that's taken care of-

I fire my pistol at the shop window and chuck one of the bags through it, then head back for another. Wolf and Hoxton start throwing bags as well, Chains covering us.

That is, until I see the red dot of a laser sight hovering around my left shoulder.

"Snipers! Get down!"

We all hit the deck right as three sniper shots ring out. Damn, those guys are scary. Hox only has a shotgun, I don't have long range stuff, Chains' weapon isn't long range either-

Wolf brings a small machine gun up to his shoulder and fires a burst. One of the bullets hits the sniper he was aiming at. He calmly turns and focuses on the next one.

I return to bag moving. This building is actually pretty safe, all things considered. Tightly locked doors, and there are lots of shelves to block incoming fire.

Chains backs into the store, having finished off the last of the threats for the moment. "Hey, where are Hoxton and Wolf?"

"I don't know." I raise myself just over eye level to the shelves and look around. "Maybe they're on the other side of the van?"

As I speak, I can see Hoxton's mask pop over the top of the van. She pries open the door and bends over into the cab. Of course, Twitch. I should've remembered him. She pulls the limp body out by the shoulders and moments later she and Wolf appear with the man being supported between them.

Once they're in cover, Wolf checks the man's pulse. "He's alive, but not exactly stable. We need to get out of here." He says.

"You're telling me." Chains grumbles. "Why did they call out snipers? Isn't that a bit excessive?"

"M-Maybe they were in the neighborhood?"

Chains gives Hoxton an incredulous look. "And they just happened to have their rifles with them?"

"Y-yeah, that's a bit if a stretch." Hox folds in on herself.

"Helicopter. Roof." Bain says.

I look towards the exit and note four red dots waving around the ground just outside. "Front door is out."

"Back door is locked." Wolf comments. "Dallas, can you get the back route open?"

I sigh. "Yeah, let me see it."

I head back to the doorknob and pull out my tools. Okay, this shouldn't be too bad. I start probing the pins and pushing them into the mechanism.

A bullet impacts right next to my head, but I force myself to ignore it. If I panic, we're all doomed. After all, this is a nice position, very defensible. It's also only got one easily accessed exit, making for an ideal trap.

I pop the door open, and the others grab bags and start throwing them into the store room, which has another locked door at the far side.

It's become quiet without the gunfire. Chains is keeping an eye on the door, but apparently feels it's safe enough to replace the magazine on her LMG. Wolf drags the unconscious form of Twitch into the back room.

When I finally pop the lock, I look back at the others. Chains has two bags of loot, Hoxton has one more, and Wolf still has Twitch.

I ready my gun and kick the door open.

There's nobody back here. What?

"I'll be there in sixty seconds."

"Hey, that sounded a lot like Bile." Chains says.

"We'll see. For now, get this stuff to the roof."

Chains turns to look at the roof of which we had just left the shelter and drops one of the bags. I watch in silence as she grabs the second duffel bag, turns around in place once, twice, and launches the bag upwards and onto the roof.

I have to admit, its faster than carrying them the entire way.

We sit in the back alley, watching as Chains swings each of the bags up and onto the roof. I'm just grateful the snipers hadn't spotted us yet. Maybe they're too focused on the front of the building? Once the last bag is up, I can hear the helicopter on its approach.

"Time to move." I head for the back stairwell, the others following me.

The Helicopter comes into view, and I can see one of the snipers look up and focus on the helicopter. Bile's voice comes in over the radio. "I can only be here for three minutes. After that, you're on your own."

It pulls in for a stop… on the wrong roof.

"Shit!" I turn around. Thankfully, there's a twisty set of stairs up to the other roof as well. Chains pushes past me to the stairs.

"I'll get the bags!" She brandishes her gun as she takes a sharp turn.

Wolf turns without prompting and starts up to the next roof, passenger still in tow.

I aim my pistol down the alley and wait for someone to notice we aren't going to be leaving through the front door.

It doesn't take long.

My first few bullet miss their target, but the forth one impacts the first officer around the corner, dropping him.

Sniper shots ring out, the heavy rounds clattering around the ductwork on the roof. I can only hope Chains is alright. Her safety is confirmed a moment later as the bag of jewelry crashes down on the ground next to me.

Hoxton grabs the bag and turns to head up the stairs. I fire a few more shots and grab the next bag to be thrown down, throwing it over my shoulder and running after Hox.

Once up the flight of stairs, I can see Chains desperately trying to stay out of sniper fire while still getting to the bags of riches she had tossed on the roof. The snipers are keeping her pretty well pinned though, so it's not going well.

Once I reach the helicopter, I can see that Twitch has already been loaded into a seat and belted in. I throw my bag onto the seat next to him and immediately turn around to grab another.

Wolf steps up to the edge of the roof and squeezes off another small burst of ammo at one of the snipers, and I can see the body slump over its weapon across the street.

Chains utilizes the opportunity to grab the last two bags, toss them over the side and drop down. She grabs her two bags and runs up the stairs.

With Wolf covering us, we grab all the rest of the bags, toss them into the now very crowded helicopter, and pile in ourselves.

As we fly off, a single sniper rifle shot follows us up. It plinks off the metal frame, and we're almost home free.

Bile looks over his shoulder. "Where we headed?"

"The same place as last time." I shout over the noise of the rotors.

The helicopter banks to the left and I get a decent view of the streets below. Filled with police officers, and some green uniforms I haven't seen before. They look much more resilient than the general police officers, too.

Somehow, I get the feeling that the future holds so nasty surprises.

Bain's voice interrupts my thinking. "Good job. Contacting fence."

Chains takes off her mask and lays her head against the door of the helicopter with a pleased smile on her face. "Man, I could really go for a drink after today."

A voice I wasn't planning on hearing today cuts in. Vlad's thick accent cuts into our radios and those of us who have the space straighten up reflexively. "Funny you should mention that…"

* * *

Missions: Jewelry Store with the Street Escape end. For the record, the hot dog cops do exist in game, but they don't have pagers and can be bagged and tagged without making stealth impossible.

Also, the next mission should be fairly obvious. I'm going to have fun with those assets.

Until next time.


	4. Chapter 4: Get Drunk and Shoot Far

Recon, we called it. After all, the more information we have on a target, the better we're equipped to deal with it.

Those had been the pretty words that we used to take a day off to get drunk. Technically, Yuki's not of legal age yet, but forging a valid ID was a simple task. The five of us sit in a booth next to the dance floor, the pounding music setting a rhythm that gets my feet tapping. It's also loud enough that normal conversations can't be overheard, which is ideal. Not that it matters much when everyone's too drunk to operate.

"Heyyyy, Kyo-*hic*-on. Le's dance!"

I pry Haruhi's hand off of my bicep. "Haruhi, you couldn't possibly dance in that state. You'll end up falling flat on your face." While she might have a decent alcohol tolerance, after five glasses of absinth I'm surprised she's still awake enough to complain.

She frowns, her inebriated state the only thing letting me get away with the remark unscathed. "I can too dance!" She proclaims loud enough that someone passing by looks over at her. "C'mon, Kyon. It's embarrassin' to be down there alone."

I look at the rest of the Payday gang. Mikuru has gone comatose after three and a half martinis, arms loosely hugging the remaining alcohol. She seems to be mumbling something, but it's too quiet to hear in this noise. Koizumi is sitting in his seat, looking at all the people as they pass by, nursing his drink. He seems sober, but I know him well enough to see that any second he's going to make a pass at one of the girls walking around, something he never does sober. Yuki is still working on her first drink, some sort of fancy mix with mint in it. She has a slight pink tinge in her cheeks one wouldn't normally see. As I look her way, she ducks her head down and starts shifting around uncomfortably

This makes me the soberest of our gang, or at least the only one who can handle Haruhi at the moment. I sigh and get up off of the bench. Haruhi smiles and grabs my arm, ostensibly to lead me to the dance floor, but I can feel her using me to keep herself upright.

"Are you sure you want to dance?" I say. "You're barely standing up."

She glares at me. Well, she glares off to my left. "I came here to dance, an' 'm gonna dance!"

At which point, she stumbles over her own foot and rips herself from my grip, crashing to the floor. I lean down and shake her shoulder, but she's knocked herself out.

And now I have to haul her back to our table. It's not easy, but I manage it without incident. I sit her upright on the bench and watch as she flops over onto the table, almost upsetting Mikuru's drink. For her part, Mikuru just keeps snoring adorably.

"Kyon."

I look across the table to Yuki. Her eyes are wider than usual, and she's clutching the dregs of her drink like her life depends on it.

"What's up, Yuki?"

Her cheeks color even more, and she looks down. "Did you forget?"

Did I forget what? I grab my beer and drain it. "Did I forget what, Yuki?"

Koizumi is finally drunk enough to make a move, standing up abruptly and leaving the table after someone. I watch him go upstairs before turning back to Yuki.

"You made me a promise."

I've made her several promises, and I've kept all of them as far as I know. We've know each other a long time, long before we turned to criminal careers though, so maybe I did forget one. "Yuki, what promise?"

"Said you would help me."

I'm used to short sentences and her tendency to only state the most necessary of information, but this is slightly irritating. "I'll help you with anything, you know that."

She looks back up, her eyes achieving that look that's excellent at forcing men to do their bidding, but she remains silent.

I sigh and drop my head on the table. Whose idea was it to get drunk? It better not have been mine, because I stopped having fun once Mikuru fell asleep.

Haruhi suddenly bolts upright. She blinks a few times, then stands up and holds a hand up to the sky. "I am the queen of the bar! If you don't agree, I'll fight you!"

Despite the loud music, enough people hear her to cause a nuisance. Well, I'm not having fun anymore, and that was as good a cue as any that it was time to leave. If only I knew where Koizumi had gone off to…

* * *

The next day, all five of us sit around a table in the safe house. Three of our number are miserable. "Kyon, let's talk about this heist another day." Haruhi looks like she's been hit on the head with a hammer once too many times.

I shake my head. "Yuki says we need to set the plan now, or we may have trouble getting everything in order."

Yuki, the only other person besides me without a massive hangover, nods. "Need to hire a driver."

I slam my hand down on the table, making Mikuru, Koizumi and Haruhi wince. I have to admit, after the sheer amount of embarrassment they had put me through last night I feel that this is entirely justified. "We need to make the plans now."

Koizumi raises his hand. "What are we even supposed to do?"

Yuki turns to face Koizumi. "Get cash from safe, then to Vlad."

"From a nightclub?"

I fold my arms across my chest. "The Tasteful Club belongs to one of Vlad's rivals. Right now, the bouncers and security are all Russian mafia. Vlad wants us to grab all the cash out of his safe and get it to him. Something about blood money."

Mikuru shivers. "This doesn't sound good."

I resist giving her a look. "It's not like we have much of a choice. Vlad's our way into the underworld."

Haruhi leans back in her chair. "So we go in, kill this guy, and make off with his cash?"

Yuki shakes her head. "Dimitri must be kept alive."

"What? That makes the job harder!" Haruhi sits back up, the front legs of the metal chair coming down with a bang. "What happens if he gets caught in the crossfire?"

"Vlad doesn't pay." Yuki says. She turns to look at me for support.

"We're going to do this one quietly. Get in and out before the cops show up." I tap the blueprint Yuki has obtained for us. "We need to get the money to Vlad in three days, and we barely have time to get all our affairs in order before the deadline. What's more, we can't carry the money with us since Vlad is afraid we'll reveal his safe house."

"We need two drivers." Yuki summarizes. "One for the money, one for you."

Mikuru raises her hand. "I know someone with a pickup truck."

"That doesn't do us any good unless the owner is alright with us using it for illegal activities." I look back down at the blueprints. A pickup truck would be useful, but I don't know anybody with one personally.

"He would be fine with it." Mikuru says. "He does anything I ask! I would just have to ask him to borrow his truck for a friend, and he'd gladly let me use it."

Poor guy. Mikuru probably doesn't even realize _why_ he'd go to those lengths.

"We'll be able to get Twitch for our getaway driver."

Yuki nods and pulls her cell phone out of her bag.

"He's alright?" Mikuru asks tentatively.

"Yes. Seems he enjoys the thrill of the chase too much to give it up, either." I smile at the orange haired beauty.

She sighs in relief.

Koizumi suddenly jerks upright, winces in pain from the sudden movement, and hold up a finger. "I have an idea."

Haruhi turns to him. "Yeah?"

"Does anyone have a DJ they hate?"

* * *

Arrangements done, we had gone our separate ways until the big day, which was at night. Thursday night.

Once again, three of us are in suits and Mikuru is wearing a short dress. The van is parked in the alley across the street, Twitch enjoying a smoke while we make our move. All of our gear with the exception of my mask and gun are left in the van. My Bernetti 9 is tucked into my waistband, and the mask is attached to my hip like some sort of gross decoration. Hidden under the mask is a drill for the safe.

We're not going in gun's blazing, so dragging an AK.762 in with us would be a bad idea.

We walk across the street, Koizumi and Haruhi talking about something completely irrelevant. As we get close enough for the bouncer to notice us I notice a new addition to the front of the club. A shiny new GenSec placard has been screwed onto the side of the building. Before I can ask Yuki what was going on, the bouncer hails us.

He's not the guy that was on duty last time we came. Koizumi's eyes go wide and he turns to face Haruhi. He was supposed to talk to this guy, but he seems he's got a problem. I step up instead.

I offer my fake ID and watch as the guard looks at it with a cursory glance before nodding and handing it back to me. Yuki offers her fake ID as well, but he just waves her in without looking at it. The other two follow us in without incident. Thank god for mafia paid guards, too lazy to do proper checks.

Once inside, I poke Koizumi. "What was that about?"

"He knows me." Koizumi's ever present smile is gone, leaving me unnerved. "I wasn't aware that the mafias of Russia and America were so friendly."

"What is with this music?" Haruhi complains.

Koizumi's smile returns. "We manipulated circumstances so Kyon's friend would be the DJ tonight."

"Friend?" I snort. "He screwed me out of a thousand bucks. He sucks so bad, after tonight no respectable club will ever hire him again."

Haruhi makes a big show of plugging her ears as she heads for the bar. Koizumi and Mikuru follow her.

I excuse myself to the bathroom, carefully looking around as I walk to the back of the club. Something's odd. There's cameras here that weren't here a few days ago. That explains the GenSec plaque outside, but why did they upgrade security now?

I get into one of the stalls in the bathroom, pull out my gun and put on my mask. The others are supposed to cause a distraction so I can get past the DJ and into the back of the club. I peek out of the door, and see exactly what this distraction is.

Haruhi is holding onto a light beer, certainly nothing strong enough to get her drunk, acting as drunk as she was the night of our recon. She's currently coming on to the DJ, who is extremely uncomfortable with her being so close to his expensive equipment. That I paid for.

There aren't many people tonight thanks to my DJ friend. The few people who are here are either ignoring the scene or staring in drunk fascination. I figure now is as good a time as any to go back. I pass right behind the scene of the chaos, not a single soul looking my direction.

The kitchen has a few people in it, but they're too engrossed with their work to notice me. I slip past them into the storage room.

"Who are you?"

I turn around to find a face I know from photographs. This is Dimitri, the guy Vlad wants us to screw over. I raise my pistol up and jab it into his gut. "Let's go up to your office."

He slowly turns to the security door he had just closed behind him and scans a card that makes the door unlock. I follow him in, closing the door and checking it's locked behind me. So far, so good. There's two girls sitting on one of his couches. I wave my pistol at them and they both freeze in place.

"Who are you?" Dimitri repeats his question.

"Nobody you need to concern yourself with." I reply. "Just be quiet and lay there and I don't have to shoot you."

I tie up Dimitri and the two girls and look around the office. The most obvious feature of the room aside from the desk is a safe in the corner. I pull out the drill Mikuru had prepared for me and attach it to the front of the safe.

"What are you after?" Dimitri calls to me.

"Shut up."

"Is it money? I can give you money."

I grab a stack of cash off of his desk. "You mean this?" I stuff it into the pocket of my suit. "It's not like you can stop me taking it."

He curses under his breath.

I scoop all the rest of the money into my pockets. It's all loose change, so it's probably not what Vlad wants us to give to him. Probably.

I keep an eye on the drill while periodically sweeping my gun over my hostages to make sure they stay in place. To be honest, this is the worst part. Waiting. Nothing has gone wrong, but it could go wrong so fast that I have to stay on my guard. To give myself something to do, I call Yuki. "Yuki, there's security camera here that weren't present when we were here last. Do you know how they're hooked up?" I keep care not to say it loud enough for Dimitri to hear.

"I will look it up." Comes the prompt response.

The drill bit suddenly shatters, making me jump. I almost pulled the trigger of my gun on reflex. I yank the drill off the safe and look at the hole it has made. It's not quite through, but I should be able to pry it open from here. I set my pistol down and start unscrewing part of the drill assembly to use as a pry bar.

Suddenly, the pounding music stops. I pause my efforts to prize open the safe and glance out the window overlooking the dance floor.

Haruhi has dragged the DJ onto the floor, bringing some of his expensive equipment with him. She seems to be getting ready for a fight. Maybe she got too into her role?

A pounding comes from the door leading to the storage room. "Sir? We have a situation downstairs. What should we do?"

Dimitri looks at me and grins. Before I can grab my pistol off of the table, he shouts back. "Call in GenSec. We've got intruders!"

Oh, shit. I quickly go back to the safe and redouble my efforts to open it. "Yuki, get that truck under the window. I'm about to open the safe. We've been compromised."

I give the makeshift crowbar one more pull and the lock shatters. I reach inside the safe to grab the cash, only to grab a gallon Ziploc bag full of white powder.

Cocaine? Wait, we're after money!

I run up to Dimitri, who is still grinning. "Where's the cash?"

"What cash?" He says taunting me with his tone of voice. "You already took all the cash I have in here."

"I know you have a ton of cash in here somewhere. Do you want me to shoot it out of you?" I press my gun to his knee.

His grin disappears. "Wait a second, you work for Vlad, don't you? I knew he was going to attack me! Asshole said he was going to make me pay!"

Well, the jig's so far up it might as well be in outer space. I pull the trigger and shatter his knee.

He screams in pain. When he talks again, he has a heavy Russian accent. "Fuck! Okay, okay, I give you cash. It's in basement."

I turn away from the crippled man and go back to the safe. "Guys, get out of the club and get your gear. Security just called in GenSec."

Koizumi's voice comes over the small transceiver. "We know. Haruhi has started a brawl. Mikuru and I are already getting the guns and masks."

I finish packing the coke into a duffle bag and peer out the interior window overlooking the dance floor. Several of the Russian mobsters are laid out on the floor with Haruhi in the center of them, still standing and waving her fists around.

"The cash isn't in the office. Do you know which of the two doors we found leads to the basement?"

Instead of Koizumi, Yuki answers me. "Neither door is marked. Try both."

"Mikuru, bring two drills." Koizumi says.

"Switch over to call signs too."

I get three acknowledgements. I turn my attention back to the Russian mob boss.

"You're lucky Vlad wants you alive." I mutter to the guy. "Otherwise, I'd shoot you in the face."

Instead, I shoot out the ankle on his undamaged leg. He screams in pain and twists on the ground.

Glancing back out the window overlooking the dance floor, I can see the three others with their masks on. Hoxton heads towards the back while Chains and Wolf remain on the dance floor for crowd control. I kick both of the bags of cocaine into the corner behind the stairs before running downstairs to join with Hoxton.

"Truck will be there in two." Bain states.

"Great." I look across the store room and notice that Hoxton isn't placing down a drill. Instead, she's duct-taping something to the hinges. As the third brick is attached, she presses a button on each and turns around.

"Get away, Ky- Dallas!"

Realization hits me as my female teammate tackles me to the ground less than a second before the blast goes off.

She sits up on my chest and starts gesturing wildly, but I can't figure out what she's saying behind her mask. I point to my ear and shake my head. She stops gesturing and starts pounding on my chest with her fists.

"Ow! Stop it!" I yell.

She apparently hears me, because she stops hitting me and points towards the door she just blew off its hinges. She seems to saying something, but again I can't hear her over my newly acquired tinnitus.

I push at her side to get her off of me, and she finally gets the memo and stands up. Say what you will about plastic explosive, it certainly gets the job done. I raise the pistol up and start walking down the stairs, only to find the basement deserted. There's another safe down here though.

"Looks like we have the correct door." I say over the radio, and my ear have cleared enough for me to hear a vague response from Bain.

Hoxton moves up to the safe and places another charge on the door of the safe. Forewarned this time, I duck down and cover my ears.

The blast isn't nearly as bad if you're expecting it.

Inside this safe is the money Vlad wanted us to grab. I open two more duffle bags and start packing the money.

Hox grabs my arm before I can finish packing any of the bags. "Aren't you going to answer me?"

"What?"

"I asked you if you-"

"Would you two love birds get a move on?" Wolf says through grit teeth.

"Truck's almost there." Bain says.

"GenSec's here!" Wolf calls out.

"Whooooo!" Chains whoops before the radio crackles with gunfire.

Hoxton grabs the first bag and heads up the stairs. I finish packing the last bag and follow shortly. The sound of gunfire comes from the main area, and I ignore it in favor of heading up the second flight of stairs.

Which is when I hear a very loud gunshot and a cry of pain.

I get to the top of the stairs to see Hoxton writing on the floor in pain. All of the gun smoke around lets me see a faint red line dancing around the room. Snipers.

I quickly sidle up to the window and peek out.

The red line snaps to my position immediately and fires a shot. It misses me by a paper's width.

Okay, at least I know where he is. I carefully reach across the floor and drag a still writing Hoxton towards the window, out of the sniper's line of sight. It looks like the sniper got her left shoulder. It's not going to kill her immediately, at least.

I crawl alongside the wall and pop out form the opposite side of the windows facing the building across the street. The sniper takes a fraction of a second too long to reposition his rifle and I nail him with a careful shot from my pistol.

Outside, a black pickup truck rolls under the window and honks. "Truck has arrived." Bain says.

"Got it. Everyone else, Hox is wounded. Get to the van, I'll be right after you."

"…Ah." Bain sounds a bit embarrassed. "I told Twitch to leave for a moment. I will send him back."

It's all I can do to keep from sighing. Instead, I toss the money bag on my shoulder out the window and into the bed of the truck, then grab Hox's bag and toss it out as well.

"What do we do with the cocaine?" I ask over the radio.

"Toss it in the truck. Let Vlad deal with it!" Wolf yells back right before another explosion goes off.

I grab the two other bags and bring them over to the window. I raise them both to toss them out the window-

Something heavy lands on my head, and I get knocked to the floor.

Three FBI troops stand above me, weapons drawn and ready to fire. All of them aiming at me. They came in through the skylight.

I struggle to bring my pistols to bear, but one of the troops shoots the gun out of my hand. Despite my current predicament, that's a pretty awesome feat to pull off and I had to give the guy a little bit of respect.

In the next second, his brains decorate the room as a bullet blows straight through his skull.

The two remaining troops spin around to find Hoxton isn't quite out of the game yet. She fires another round into the second troops face, killing him. The strain is clearly getting to her, as the gun drops out of her hand from the recoil.

I quickly grab the first troop's pistol and fire at the last remaining FBI agent. He goes down without knowing what hit him.

I rush over to Hoxton. "Are you okay?"

She smiles weakly at me. "I can't feel my arm."

Very, _very_ not okay then. As I watch, she passes out, though from blood loss or from the pain I'm not sure. I toss the two bags out the window.

"We took out the first wave." Chains reports over the radio. "Now, you're coming with me!"

I can hear muffled protests through her headset.

"Chains, what are you doing with him?" Wolf's voice is resigned.

"I'm gonna teach him a lesson!"

Right now, I expect she's grinning. The freaking psycho.

I grab Hoxton as gently as I can and head downstairs. The dance floor is currently deserted and drenched in blood and gore. Looks like Chains and Wolf did a number on the first responders. I tighten my grip on Hoxton and rush out the front door.

Wolf and Chains are crouching in an alley across the street. My DJ "friend" is currently tied down and lying face first on the cold ground. He's soiled himself quite badly, judging by the smell.

"ETA on the van?" I press my hand to my ear as I hand Hoxton to our resident medic, Wolf.

From the end of the alley, a pair of headlights flashes. "It should be there now." Bain adds, maybe a touch unhelpfully.

As soon as the doors open, Wolf loads in Hoxton, Chains loads in the DJ, and I climb in last.

Plenty of police vehicles pass us by as we make our getaway, none of them sparing us even a passing glance. Not that anyone in the van cared, all of us in the crammed space.

Wolf pulls of his mask and starts working on Hox, fervently patching her wounds with the skill that practice has wrought. I pull off her mask to see her face had paled considerably from blood loss.

Amidst the sirens, the smell of evacuated bowels, and adrenaline, I could only watch helplessly as Mikuru wavered in and out of consciousness all the way back to the safe house.


End file.
